The glue of it all is cheap, reliable internet access

I was interviewed for the November edition of City Views — “your free Cape Town central city newspaper” — about the importance of affordable connectivity for ideas to spread and innovation to flourish (drawing on the ideas of Clay Shirky and Steven Johnson that I spoke about in my TEDx Stellenbosch presentation). Pull quote:

Lots of innovation is happening totally under the radar – in people’s garages, in backyards, in shacks – but these are all pretty small-scale and the lessons aren’t really communicated out. If you can provide a network to connect these people – help them research what others are doing, find that someone down the street who is working on the same thing – then good ideas can be amplifi ed and businesses scaled up. The glue of it all is cheap, reliable internet access.

The whole edition is dedicated to connectivity and creativity in Cape Town — it’s worth a read.